German police investigating the mass shooting in Munich last Friday night in which nine people were killed have said the gunman was racist and a rightwing extremist who saw it as a “special honour” that he shared a birthday with Adolf Hitler.

Ali David Sonboly, 18, who was born in Munich to Iranian parents, boasted to friends that he was proud to be an “Aryan”, citing Iran as the land where Aryans originated and repeatedly stating his hatred of Turks and Arabs.

Investigators are examining whether Sonboly specifically targeted people of foreign origin when he apparently lured young people to McDonald’s via a Facebook page in which he offered them free food.

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All his victims had a migrant background – three were of Turkish origin, three others were of Kosovan heritage.

Sonboly boasted of having the same birthday as Hitler, 20 April, saying it was an “accolade”, those close to him told police, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung reported.

On Wednesday, police announced they had arrested a 15-year-old boy who they believe was in online contact with Sonboly and who admitted that he had planned to carry out a shooting rampage.

Prosecutors and police in Ludwigsburg say the boy was arrested on Monday night and sent to a psychiatric facility. Bullets, knives, escape plans for his school, chemicals and bomb-making instructions were found at his home.

When questioned by police, the boy admitted that he had been contemplating carrying out a mass shooting, as he had had problems at school and was being bullied. However, he told police he had since abandoned his plans.

The fact that he had been in contact with Sonboly set alarm bells ringing about the extent to which would-be mass shooters are colluding with, and being inspired by, each other. Sonboly is known to have been inspired by the Norwegian mass murderer Anders Breivik. He also visited the site in Winnenden, south east Germany, where Tim Kretschmer killed 15 people at his school in 2009.

The details emerged as Germany sought to come to terms with a week of bloodshed, including an axe attack on a train in which four people were seriously injured, a machete attack in which a pregnant woman was murdered, and a suicide bomb in which 12 people were injured.

Two of the attacks are suspected of having been motivated by Islamic extremism.

On Wednesday, with the country on edge, fears of another attack were raised again when what initially appeared to be a bomb went off 200 metres from a refugee reception centre in Zirndorf near Nuremberg, southern Germany.

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Closer investigation revealed a suitcase which had been filled with spray cans. Witnesses saw several men run away from the scene. No one was injured, according to police.

In Bremen, a large shopping centre was evacuated in the early evening after a 19-year-old Algerian, who had escaped from a psychiatric facility, was spotted acting suspiciously. Police searched the complex in the hope of finding the man and an object he had been carrying, possibly a rucksack or a bag. By late evening, the search remained inconclusive.

Amid widespread debate about how to increase safety in public places, the national rail network, Deutsche Bahn (DB), announced it was to step up security by introducing hundreds of new security guards on services across the country. It said they would be better trained and better equipped than before.

DB will continue to test the use of body cameras on guards and possibly ticket collectors in the hope of improving safety following the Würzburg axe attack.

Investigators of the attack in Ansbach in which 27-year-old Mohammad Daleel blew himself up outside a music festival on Sunday night said they believed the Syrian had likely been taking orders from someone and had spoken to them in the seconds before detonating his bomb.

Islamic State has claimed credit for the attack, though it has given no evidence that it had directed or known of Daleel before the explosion.

A psychological report compiled earlier this year and leaked to the tabloid Bild showed that Daleel was known to have suicidal tendencies and he was “to be believed” when he said he was planning “a spectacular suicide”.

The report said: “Following the death of his wife and his six-month-old son, he has nothing else to lose.” He had previously been found on the grounds of the unemployment office in Ansbach with a bottle of petrol in his bag.

Daleel had already tried to kill himself on two occasions. His carer described him as “a man broken by war ... who was only interested in his computer and the internet”.

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As the political discussion over the possible consequences of the attacks became increasingly heated, the human rights organisation Amnesty International condemned proposals by Bavaria’s interior minister, Joachim Herrmann, to “break the taboo” and start sending refugees back to war zones if they broke the terms of their permission to stay in Germany.

The deputy head of the rightwing populist party Alternative für Deutschland, Alexander Gauland, proposed putting a temporary ban on all Muslims entering Germany until all the refugees currently awaiting registration had been properly identified.

The threat over Germany is expected to dominate Angela Merkel’s annual summer press conference on Thursday. The date has been brought forward because of the events of recent days. Last year, when it was held at the end of August, the dominant topic was of the refugees who were arriving in huge numbers and the chancellor uttered her now famous statement: “We can manage it.”